Jamie McGrigor, Highlands & Islands Conservative MSP, has urged the Scottish Government to ensure that the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) system tackles the significant decline in cattle and sheep numbers across the Highlands & Islands.
Jamie was speaking in this afternoon’s Parliamentary debate at Holyrood on the new CAP system.
Speaking in the debate, Jamie, who is Convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on Crofting, said:
“As an MSP for Highlands & Islands region, I must emphasise the need to regenerate hill farming in the remote areas. More of the money should go uphill, as is the EU intention.
"The LFA payments used to be entitled the Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowance, but it is now dreadfully inadequate to tackle the fall in numbers of livestock in the Highlands & Islands - which leads to a fall in the number of farming families.
"An Argyll farming constituent pointed out there used to be a solid week of cattle sales in Oban in October, now there is one day and it is often over by early afternoon, and the sheep sector, despite having a big improvement in prices last year, is very vulnerable because many think that the job is just not worth the effort.
"Although the subsidies seem big, they are very quickly used up in the maintenance of fencing, drainage, and any fertilisers, which of course cannot be targeted because these would be production subsidies unlike in the late 60s and 70s when farmers got 90% grant for drainage and 70% for spreading lime on the hills, plus grants for fencing.
"A good mixed farm is taking in some £350 per acre, while a Highland hill farm is lucky to take in £35, and a hill farm has to buy in most of its winter feeding and usually has to outwinter its ewe lambs off the farm, which is very expensive but necessary for quality stock in future. Hill farmers with hefted breeding stocks are forced to keep their young breeding stock all the year round, they cannot just buy and sell them as a commodity. Therefore, I would like the Minister to seriously consider the addition of ewe lambs for breeding stock to the number used for calculating stocking density, as they are just as much a part of the picture as the breeding ewe.
"With the current wish for rural areas to support public good, there is no doubt that a well-managed hill farm produces good biodiversity and access to the public for walking and other sports, and of course peat is a tremendous carbon sink.
“When I myself started farming in the Highlands, the primary industries of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries provided significant employment. This is no longer the case, and I would like to see that situation reversed, which is apparently the EU intention. Most family farms do not employ a shepherd or cattleman, and most of the villages built for forestry workers no longer house them. Over 100 families were employed on Lochaweside in connection with the Forestry Commission. That has gone, and so has the spirit of neighbouring generated among hill farmers.
“While all of us accept the reality of the move to an area-based system of direct payment support, I agree very much with the comments of the NFUS (NFU Scotland) that how Scotland is mapped is going to be a crucial issue.
"Both three- and two-region models should be assessed. Accurate mapping is of particular importance to those farming in our hills, glens, and islands, where small areas of productive land must be captured by the mapping system to ensure payments adequately reflect these areas.
"I am insistent that this system should deliver more money up the hill, where the seedcorn of the sheep and cattle industry is bred and where agricultural employment should be much higher, as it used to be.
"I am very aware of the concerns of some producers in my region, for example Orkney beef producers, those with breeding hill flocks, and farmers of the more productive areas of islands like Islay - who voiced their concerns to me when I met some of them last week - who fear they will be losers in the new area-based system, and their anxieties must be addressed.
"If we have to end up with an area-based system, the move must not be too dramatic or fast as to throw current farming systems into chaos or insolvency. Farmers need time to adapt to a new system.
"The option to couple payments to sustain vulnerable sectors is going to be an extremely important feature of support going forward. As the NFUS has suggested, targeting payments to active livestock units reduces the possible flattening of area payments. The area payments must be big enough in the hills to stop the current decline in livestock numbers, otherwise the present depopulation which is particularly evident in Argyll & Bute will continue.
“I know that further consultations with stakeholders will take place this autumn, and the point was made strongly to government officials at last week’s Crofting CPG (Cross-Party Group), including by NFUS Argyll & the Islands Regional Manager Lucy Sumsion, that stakeholders need early notice of these meetings so that views can be gathered and passed on to government”.